1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a reactor for conducting a reaction.
2. Description of the Related Art
A reactor having at least one side of a flow passage section at approximately several mm and a microreactor having at least one side of a flow passage section at less than 1 mm are generally known. A reactor having such a micro space as a reaction field (compact reactor) has a large specific surface area per unit volume. Thus, heat transfer efficiency is high, and a reaction speed or yield can be improved. Moreover, by arbitrarily constituting convection or diffusion modes, rapid mixing or control of positively applying concentration distribution can be realized. Therefore, reactions can be strictly controlled.
A heat-exchange type reactor provided with a reaction-side flow passage to be a reaction field and a heat-medium side flow passage which is provided in parallel with the reaction-side flow passage with a heat-transfer partition between them and through which a heat medium performing heat exchange with a reaction fluid flowing through the reaction-side flow passage flows has been also developed. This heat-exchange type reactor attracts attention since it can conduct reactions efficiently in the reaction-side flow passage.
In this type of reactor, a catalyst is arranged in the reaction-side flow passage (reaction field), and a reaction fluid constituting a reaction object is made to flow through the reaction-side flow passage so as to promote a reaction. As a technology of arranging the catalyst in the reaction-side flow passage, a technology in which a catalyst is carried by a metal plate having a corrugated shape, and the metal plate carrying the catalyst is installed on the reaction-side flow passage so that the catalyst is uniformly arranged over the entire region of the reaction-side flow passage is disclosed (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-154001 (Patent Literature 1)).